"We would have been there with you, if we could".

Yesterday our family got invited to partake a meal at the farm by our farm workers.

The reasoning was to welcome us back from our time in the States and to also give apologies for us losing my Mom.

This was so meaningful in many different ways. I have explained before that the communities and villages in this area live in extreme poverty. Most families have a one bedroom hut. Food is cooked on charcoal. Water is fetched from pumps or the river everyday. Sickness is rampant. There are complications with pregnancy and delivery. Job opportunities range from making charcoal, driving passengers on motorbikes, and trying to start small businesses (little shops selling basic household items). Non Government organizations often bring relief and aid to these people. There are times when there is great need for this, especially around flood season. It also negatively develops a dependency on outside sources to provide everything and anything. When a disaster happens "well-doers" from Nairobi will come to give 20-50$ to the households affected. Than they can take pictures and write up reports to the donors who invested. After this the "well-doers" pack up their things and return to their cities they have come from.We have noticed there is such a high expectancy for money/items to be given, so much so when we have stepped in to help individuals there is no response of thanks after. We cannot hide that we are foreigners, and this causes a lot of people to see what they can get from us/benefit in some way. I can understand the reasoning behind this. We were able to fly here by paying for plane tickets that one could never afford. We have several vehicles to drive around in. We always eat 3 meals a day, usually containing meat. It is easy to look at us and see a dollar sign.

All this to say that when an invitation comes from the villagers in which they want to offer us food and chai it speaks volumes of the relationship. The lines of "Us" verses "Them" blurs.  ("Christians" verses "Muslims", "Wealthy" verses "Poor")

After our family and Amos+ Grace's family took chai and ate lunch we sat around, under the trees along with the farm workers. The farm workers took time to tell us that there had always been a plan to welcome us back in this way. It just took some time for each of them to budget themselves in order to give financially to make this happen. This spoke so deeply to my heart because of the conditioning of their upbringing that I wrote about above. They gave time for Jason and I to talk. Prayerfully I asked God to give me the right words-to ultimately represent Christ well as I shared about the Legacy of my Mom. I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to tell them that my desire is that each of them would know Jesus so that they can have the assurance my Mom had when she was approaching death. This is so opposite of what their religion teaches. There is no guarantee of heaven for it is up to Allah to decide and even after death prayers can help to get a person into heaven. When it was Jason's turn to speak he boldly went further than me by talking about Jesus's birth, death, and resurrection. I do not know what they thought of it all but I leave it to the Holy Spirit.

A few of them said some words to us by thanking us for what we have done for them throughout the years. If I am completely honest it was flattering to hear those specifics but what really tugged on my heart was when G said,

 "When we got the news of your Mom passing, You know that we would have been there with you, if we could."

This broke me. I did know there were no truer words. G has faced loss, last year Jason was with him when he had to bury his 7 month old son. All the farm workers in fact have seen death too many times to count. Upon hearing about our pain they wanted to show their support for us and this was significant to show we were no longer separated by status, religion and cultures. In that moment I saw them fulfilling Leviticus 19:33-34, "When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigners residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.  I am the Lord your God."

We are the foreigners. We have been loved. 

Blog #2

During the last few months of my Moms life there was one day she turned to me in tears saying, "I am sorry I never made it to Kenya to see you Rebekah."

There is no one who can ever replace my Mom but the Lord has comforted me by showing me that My Mom's sisters, and sister n law have stepped in throughout my life to invest into me, my siblings and now my own family. God has also provided "Mother figures" for me. One of them is named Carol Freeman. She was one of our teachers in college and did several pre marital sessions with us. She has come to visit us several times here in Gtown and last week came to Kenya. We picked her up from the airport and got to travel with her to Naivasha to see the interns. The interns have been studying Swahili there and temporarily being hosted by some missionaries while we had time to settle back in our home. Jason will travel to Nairobi tomorrow and accompany them here on Tuesday. Please be prayer for a smooth transition for them. Here are some pictures Carol took while she was here.

Naivasha is green and lush, nothing like Gtown. 

We are leaving the interns house and walking to our air b n b.

The interns gorgeous house with a breathtaking view.

Rustic classroom during a Swahili class.

My girls love playing games.

Righteous got Risk for her 14th birthday while we were there.

Me, my girls, with Carol.

We had traveled to Mombasa to spend time with our fellow workers a few weeks ago but were blessed to spend some more time with them in Nairobi.